Introduction to Statistical Mechanics

Undergraduate

Thermal equilibrium, diffusive equilibrium; Boltzmann and Gibbs distributions, canonical and grand canonical partition functions; thermodynamics from statistical mechanics, entropy, work, heat; Helmholtz free energy, Gibbs free energy, enthalpy, Gibbs-Duhem relation, equations of state, Maxwell relations, response functions; Planck distribution and thermal radiation, Fermi-Dirac distribution and the Fermi gas, Bose-Einstein distribution and the Bose gas, ideal gas; chemical reactions; binary mixtures; phase transitions; elementary kinetic theory. (Prerequisites: CHEM-2400 and PHYS-3100, or consent of instructor.(3 lecture hours per week.)